Johannes Rietmann (16 March 1679 â 23 February 1765) was a Swiss mercenary officer who served first in the army of the Dutch Republic and then of the Duchy of Savoy (later Kingdom of Sardinia), rising to the general officer rank of (major general) and ennobled in 1734.
A member of the patrician Rietmann family, Johannes Rietmann was born on 16 March 1879 in Neunkirch, in the Canton of Schaffhausen, the son of the Reformed pastor and schoolmaster Heinrich Rietmann and Anna Dorothea Magirus. In 1717 he married Catharina Im Thurn.
Following a path common to many Swiss of his day, Rietmann entered foreign service in 1696 as a cadet in the Dutch States Army. He transferred to the Savoyard Army in 1703, during the War of the Spanish Succession, and was promoted through the ranks: lieutenant captain (1704), captain (1707), major (1713), major (1725), lieutenant colonel (1730), colonel (1731) and, from 1732, proprietor of his own regiment (Rietmann Regiment). He became brigadier in 1735 and in 1737.
During the War of the Polish Succession, Rietmann and his regiment distinguished themselves at the Battle of Guastalla (1734), and as a general he took part in the successful campaign against Modena and Mirandola during the War of the Austrian Succession.
Rietmann left active service in 1743 for health reasons. He had been ennobled by the King of Sardinia in 1734, and on retirement he received a life pension (reported as 6,000 yearly ). He resided in the patrician mansion in Schaffhausen, purchased in 1727, where he died on 23 February 1765.